Saturday, November 10, 2007

STITCHING A SAMPLER

Some time ago I purchased from overseas, a stitching kit which I had seen a picture of. I loved it immediately and had always promised myself I would someday stitch a sampler – this was the one I wanted to do. When the purchase arrived I opened it and loved the watercolours thread but was really disappointed to find the cream linen the original had been stitched on had been substituted in the kit for Rustico Aida. Part of the appeal for me was the cream linen however I put the kit in the cupboard deciding that sometime in the future I’d ‘have a go’ at it.

Recently I had to have surgery on my knee so during the few days of recuperation I got out the kit and began to work up some enthusiasm for stitching it. I separated the threads after I had worked out which colours corresponded with their numbers and made a start. Wow! I could hardly pull the thread through the aida holes. Was I doing something wrong? No, I checked it all again – right number of threads on the cloth, only one strand of thread - I wasn’t sure how this was really going to work out. It seemed so thick for the 18 count cloth.

I’m plugging away at it slowly but I guess the initial disappointment is still with me and I’m not sure if the end result would have been any different if this pattern had been stitched on linen.

I’m not too far into the design yet, but here’s a photo of what I’ve done so far. The thread just seems far too thick for the fabric. Maybe one of you stitchers out there in cyberspace land has used the watercolour thread and could help me with this. I’d appreciate any comments.